Behind These Eyes
by Q u e e n V a m p
Summary: My mind is full of holes, more so my memory like a video that had been watched too many times, my memory's skips and burns out time and important things. Like who kidnapped me. Laddie-centric


**Title: **Behind These Eyes  
**Song: **Pet by Perfect Circle  
**Rating: **T  
**Genre: **Angst, Horror, Hurt/Comfort  
**Fandom: **_The Lost Boys__  
_**Couple: **none  
**Inspiration: **Well, Laddie and this song and so many nightmares and my twisted mind. XD

**Warnings: **Post-Lost Boys, blood, gore, underage drinking, stupid grown-ups and nihlisim.

* * *

**Behind These Eyes**

.

.

.

In the cabinet, behind an orderly disorder of boxes, glass vases, bags of sugar and a few caramel candies there is a bottle like the one I once drank from.

Its glass and heavy in my hands and makes an odd noise as its contents slip around it.

Once I move everything around in the cabinet, there is just enough space for one such as me to sleep and when I close the cabinet door behind me, I cuddle the burgundy bottle to my body like a teddy bear, pull the cork and take a swig.

Because I need it.

Because it helps me sleep.

Because it helps me remember.

* * *

_"Don't fret precious I'm here."_

* * *

I'm like a broken toy, or a record, or something. No I'm not dying and their nothing terminally wrong with me or my body, but it my mind that doesn't cooperate. My mind is full of holes, more so my memory. Like video that had been watched too many times, my memory's skips and burns out time.

Important things. Like who kidnapped me.

No one ever talked about those six tragic months I went missing when I was eight-years-old. For my parents it was just too much that they'd lost me for that long and they couldn't find out who'd done it. It was a subject meant to be ignored and twisted around in my own way.

I'd just turned up on my doorstep one morning wrapped in my dusty gray jacket and a muffed teddy bear in my hands and a magenta lipstick smudge on my cheek.

No one had been there to drop me off.

* * *

_"Step away from the window."_

* * *

I was mute for months afterward.

Mother cried at the foot of my bed and Father called doctors from all over to come and see me.

I faintly remember my first time talking two months later. In the doctor's office one of the young interns was fiddling with a radio. I watched her manicured red fingernails dance over the buttons and turn the dial, finally setting up a muted play of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and I asked if she could please turn it up.

* * *

_"And go, back to sleep."_

* * *

I couldn't remember, but in my dreams I saw them as clear as day.

Five figures, my second family, with varying smiles, smirks and amused expressions.

I saw the dark-haired one who let me ride on the back of his motorcycle and held me protectively. The friend I never had.

I saw the wild blonde who let me drink was the same bejeweled bottle as the others. The mischievous older brother I wish I could keep.

I saw the curly haired blonde who brought me food. The cynically quiet uncle.

I saw the leader with his cool smile and eyes giving me an approving nod and laughing. The one who decided to keep me with them and whose nod of approval mean the world and everything else to me. The father I've always wanted.

But I remembered her most of all though, the memory was prominently etched into my mind: the gypsy woman in long glittery skirts and silk shawls that flew in the wind behind her with her long fizzy brown hair when she sat on the back of the leader's bike.

Her big brown doe eyes that sparkled when she laughed, which wasn't often, but when she did it was beautiful. I was always happy to be with her.

With all of them.

This strange sense of kinship had me clinging to dreams, and replicating illness just to be closer to them.

I missed them.

* * *

_"Lay your head down child."_

* * *

My therapist was scrutinizing about this, my parents hung over his shoulders. "Tell me Landon, did this woman ever . . . hurt you in any way?"

I shook my head slowly. "No, she kept me out of danger . . . she kept me away from the Surf Nazi's and tucked me in every night—" They were never interested in the good things, they just kept digging and digging until they found something bad. Like the wine the one let me drink.

It must have been a joke among us all because I remembered them saying it wasn't wine.

"What was it then?"

A sweet metallic taste rose to my tongue like an open wound on my tongue.

"I don't know . . ."

I fiddled with the draw strings of my sweater.

Did I really wear these things before?

I looked down at my faded blue jeans and sneakers. I instantly missed my general's jacket and black velvet pants with leather boots. These weren't me.

Too plain, too dull, too lifeless.

Who was _me_ before I came back?

Would _he _ever return?

"They said it was wine, but it wasn't wine . . . it tasted weird and I only got one sip before another guy tore the bottle away from me and yelled at the one who gave it to me. They were mad I drank it, but they didn't get the chance to yell at me because we all had to go to sleep."

"Go to sleep?" The man's brow rose.

"Yes, because the sun was coming up."

My parents and the therapist exchanged glances.

* * *

_"I won't let the boogeyman come."_

* * *

Mother gave me a radio to put in my room and she terrified when I started blaring rock music as loud as the dial would go—honestly it seemed like the only way to listen to it. She came charging into my room one day and unplugged in it the middle of the last verse of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and this time I yelled.

"Hey! Don't take my rock box!"

Mother stared and set the radio back on the side table and left me to my music and thoughts.

* * *

_"Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums."_

* * *

In my mind I was back with my second family and I fantasized about sitting around, eating dinner, laughing and having a good time, while drinking that strange wine that came from the bottle but always managed to starve off hunger for a few nights before swallowing down Chinese food—which my pious mother would never let me eat—by the carton.

Chinese food, laughter, fires, rock music and motorcycles driving over sandy beaches.

I had lived the life I'd always wanted and my mother most feared; free with wind beneath my wings so I could fly away and never come back.

* * *

_"Pay no mind to the rable, pay no mind to the rable."_

* * *

"Where did you stay?"

My face scrunched. _Where did we stay?_

My mind vividly recalled an eclipse of colors and a cluttered link of tunnels and silken scarves hanging from the ceiling around my bed and the battered old teddy bear one of the guys gave me. I described it to them, but my memory was full of holes.

I don't remember walking anywhere. I'd always gotten on the back of the dark-haired one's bike and we rode off into the darkness.

"It was very far away . . ." I trailed off. "I remember being at the carnival and then getting on a bike . . . then the guy driving it was very nice. He never smiled, but he smiled at me and always ruffled my hair. I got mad at him for it and he'd laughed. It was very deep, like that guy from—"

"Stay focused Landon!" Mother snapped.

_Laddie, Laddie, Laddie! _another voice shrilled in my mind.

Everyone leans forward waiting for me to speak, but I won't say anything they want to hear.

". . . I think we're done for the day."

* * *

_"Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums."_

* * *

"Landon, sit up straight."

_"Laddie, relax, no need to be so formal."_

Why am I so confused?

"Landon, look me in the eyes while you're speaking!"

_"Laddie, never look into the monsters eyes, look at his nose."_

Everything they said, everything they taught me is clashing around my mind, begging for dominance and going to war. I know what's right, but it's not what I want.

"Landon, turn that music _down_."

_"Laddie, turn the tunes _up_!"_

And the more I resisted the more it wore me down.

* * *

_"Pay no mind what other voices say  
They don't care about you, like I do"_

* * *

"Landon, you have to tell us what happened when you were away." The dull baritone is like a roaring in my ears, like the crashing of waves over rocks, they don't mean anything. They're just making noise to try and prove that they're there. They're selfish and noisy and no one can think properly when they're around.

"They can't hurt you anymore, Landon; you can tell us whatever you want to."

The therapist is always saying things like that. More so:

"Don't be afraid of them, Landon."

"They can't hurt you, Landon."

"We won't let them hurt you, Landon."

"They can't find you, Landon."

That was like a slug to the gut. Or worse:

"They never cared about you, Landon."

I screamed in protest and retaliated by throwing things around the office that would break.

* * *

_"Safe from paint, and truth, and choice  
and other poison devils."_

* * *

My parents, my therapist and everyone in the world called me Landon. Landon, Landon, Landon James.

But to everyone out of this world—somewhere far off and distant—I was: Laddie. Laddie, Laddie, Laddie. No last name to stake me and free from the mundane in a time of color and lights.

In that world, I was someone else, something else. I had my freedom and no consequence and I had a family that loved me unconditionally because that's the only way they knew how.

They had no expectations of me and no demands to who I should be. I was allowed to be me.

Whoever me that was.

* * *

_"See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do."_

* * *

Mother thought I was too pale, and tended to drag me along with her everywhere she went to get some sun on my cheeks. I didn't like the sunlight on my face, it battered at my eyes and made me feel so dizzy and nauseous I often lost the contents of my stomach on the sidewalk the more she took me out.

I begged her not to, but she never listened to me.

"Landon, stop this now!" she snapped and I heaved my stomach into the street, unaware of the wide circle being created around us.

My sweater was too hot, but I was so cold. Sweating and chilling and my stomach turn in knots and crying out for something I could possibly give it. My skin was blistering in the heat, and my knuckles and fingers were beginning to bleed.

It felt like my _brain _was melting and no one could care less as blood leaked from my nose.

A cool hand pressed to the back of my neck and an umbrella of shade lowered over me. Eyes stinging with tears, I looked up to find a face from my memory.

Fizzy hair created a halo around her head, and her eyes sparkled from behind a pair of dark shades.

Her name fell from my lips in a harsh whisper: "Star . . . ?"

She smiled and nodded.

Mother gripped my hand and tried to pull me up, but I stood my ground and Star slowly rose to her full height, eyes boring into Mother's and her shadows face a perfect example of controlled rage.

Mother's face twisted and her mouth fell open in shock.

Star matched my description: long brown hair, glittery skirts, bare feet, band jacket with tassels hanging off the shoulders of the leather. Undeniably beautiful and frowning softly to herself.

She was gone in the crowd before she could say anything else.

* * *

_"Just, stay with me, safe and ignorant."_

* * *

Mother was frantic, calling Father, the police, my therapist, everyone: thinking she'd come again to take me back.

_Take me back? _I cuddled into my pillows and almost smiled to myself. The thought didn't sound so bad at all. Leaving Fresno and going back who whatever ethereal wonderland I was taken from and stay there forever seemed a dream come true.

* * *

_"Go back to sleep."_

* * *

That night I snuck into the cabinet and drank the wine.

It was thick on my tongue, sweeter in taste and fit in my hand like it was always supposed to be there.

That night a dreamt the most vivid of them all.

* * *

_"Go back to sleep."_

* * *

_The cave was full of the usual cluster and noise emanating from Paul's rock box; I sat on a plushy brown couch with Dwayne picking at the Chinese food Marko had just brought back to the cave for us. I couldn't operate the chopsticks well enough with my pudgy kid fingers, so Dwayne had to show me, as usual he was patient and spoke softly because David was talking to the newcomer in his wheelchair-throne near the bone dry fountain._

_"So how are them maggots?" David asked casually, stabbing at his noodles._

_Dwayne, Paul and Marko fought back chuckles in their throats as the boy looked confused. I curled my bottom lip under my teeth and bit down gently—buttoning them shut._

_"Maggots. You're eating maggots Michael how do they taste?" The boy looked into his container and spewed rice across the floor of the cave and began to cough. _

_We all laughed at the display, then with wide eyes I looked down at my chow mien, a personal favorite since the Boys began feeding me, and then to Dwayne who shook his head and held a finger to his lips._

_"Leave him alone." Star called from the open curtains leading into our conjoined room. Her beautiful face was twisted in anger and she dared sending a glare in David's direction. He carefully regarded her and 'apologized' to the newcomer._

_"Sorry about that. No hard feelings?" David offered his box. "How about some noodles?"_

_Dwayne laughed, careful to keep his rice in his mouth while I watched David work._

_David was a magician. He could make anyone believe something was anything it was not._

_I told this to Star and she'd given me a look and said I was right, but it wasn't just David's powers, it was his personality._

_Marko stepped forward and David whispered in his ear. The exchange last for a moment, but Marko nodded and turned back sinisterly to the small pigeon sized alcove of the cave where he'd stashed the wine bottle._

_The boy drank, and it became our undoing._

* * *

_"Lay your head down child!"_

* * *

I could heard loud crashing from outside, and screaming.

Mother's screams ring up the walls and peel back the wallpaper with their shrilling soprano.

There's also laughter and shrieking that comes from no human mouth.

Something makes a loud thud against the tiled floors but the beast is far from done yet.

* * *

_"I won't let the boogeyman come!"_

* * *

_Michael was his name like the savior from some Biblical story._

_Star liked him a lot. And for that I hated him much, much more. _

_Would he try to take her away? No, he was part of the clan now, like me and Star he held on to the invisible in between of humanity and vampirism. It was a line I wanted to cross, but Star grasped tightly to me, restraining me from the bend and I stayed faithfully by her side._

_The Boys scared me sometimes. _

_Though I loved them and they were my family, sometimes the brightness in their eyes wasn't just from laughter and cool magic tricks weren't just for fun and then they smiled so wide animal-like teeth grew over their normal ones and their faces twisted with ridges of terrifying masks._

_In a few fleeting seconds gone were the jokes and warmth and music, and creatures far stronger than any man overtook them._

_That's what kept me at bay._

* * *

_"Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums!"_

* * *

Father was next, and he tried to fight, shotgun in hand the noise had raised the alarm of some neighbors, but they wouldn't come around or call the police either.

They were just as terrified of us as I was of the Boys.

He died quickly, by the sound of it, and fell right into the heap with Mother.

* * *

_"Pay no mind to the rable, pay no mind to the rable!"_

* * *

_They pulled Michael's brother Sam into the equation, giving him vampirism before he even wanted it and forced the bloodwine done his throat as if to purge humanity from his lanky body._

_David had taken matters into his own gloved hands and cut the wrists of two hunters only to lock them away with the newly awaken vampires._

_It had taken less than three hours before their screams rocked the cave and Max, our apparent true leader, had his bride Lucy. _

_We were whole, one big happy family, except . . ._

_"You will feed too Star." David's voice was rough from the fight and his beard collecting dried blood that gathered on the sides of his mouth._

_. . . Star ran away that night, taking me with her._

* * *

_. . _

_"Head down, got to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums!_

* * *

"Laddie?" my name rose to the lips of the intruders and someone knelt in front of my cabinet. "Laddie, won't you come out?"

My eyes snapped open and the darkness filled my vision, aside from the soft lights coming from the cracks in the wood of the door. A splinter of terrifying realization crept through me and my hand were shaking so badly, I couldn't make proper fists to defend myself.

An empty bottle lay in my hand and I pushed it away from me, hearing it clink against the closed space and then a soft chuckle from the side of the door.

"Laddie, Laddie, Laddie, you have to open the door."

It was David.

I knew that silky voice anywhere.

"Laddie, come out. Come see what you've done."

What I've done? What have I—?

* * *

_"I'll be the one to protect you from  
Your enemies and all your demons"_

* * *

"Laddie?" a teary voice slipped into my subconscious and I knew it, the pining memories now so clearly in my mind, I kicked open the cabinet door with her name on my lips.

"Star!"

They _had _come back for me! I knew they wouldn't truly leave me here alone! We could be a family again and go to the carnival and go on motorcycle rides and eat Chinese and listen to rock music all night long.

In the kitchen there was David and Marko and Dwayne and Paul and Star!

Star was there! Clear as day before my eyes!

But she was frowning and tears were slipping down her cheeks, her mouth created and 'oh' shape and her pretty face crumbled. "Oh . . . Laddie . . ."

* * *

_"I'll be the one to protect you from  
A will to survive and a voice of reason"_

* * *

Suddenly I realized the kitchen had ungone some form of extreme remodeling.

There were holes in the wall, deep burrows and dents. And red paint was splattered all over like someone had had a paint fight. Handprints of red, splashes of red, pools of red; everywhere red, red, red.

Who'd come in with the paint? I wondered for a moment when my nose twitched at the scent.

The scent of something warm and sacred and more delicious than any nectar offered to the gods.

It wasn't paint, just like it wasn't wine, it was blood.

* * *

_"I'll be the one to protect you from  
Your enemies and your choices son"_

* * *

David, Marko, Paul and Dwayne stood around two bodies—my parents—nudging them with their boots and whistling at the gaping wounds that tore at their throats.

Their faces were clean from taint, but not the malevolent smiles.

* * *

_"One in the same, I must isolate you  
Isolate and save you from yourself."_

* * *

With a shaky hand I reached up and touched the corner of my mouth.

Glittery red mirrored back on my fingertips.

And cheers erupted from the throats of my family.

* * *

**This took a while to write, but I work up this morning (this song blaring in my earbuds) and decided to finish what I started. This is a bit of a warped ending to how I wanted _Lost Boys _to end if it was told from Laddie's point of view. I love this movie too, and I watched it non-stop this summer and I have five unfinished fanfics sitting on my laptop that I will be finishing soon!**

**Leave me a review!**

**~QueenVamp**


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